LifeTopix is an all-in-one productivity app for iPad and iPhone. We have many customers who follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method and use LifeTopix to stay organized and productive. Many of these customers ask about the most efficient ways to use LifeTopix for GTD® and our best practices.

GTD, LifeTopix, Reflecting and Weekly Reviews

David Allen rewrote the “Getting Things Done” book for 2015 and beyond, which was originally published in 2001. In addition, LifeTopix has evolved since we first published the popular post, “Best Practices for Getting Things Done – Weekly Review” in 2013. We strive to keep our customers up-to-date and hope you enjoy the new information we’re providing for you today.

We previously published three posts described below. We encourage you to read those posts before diving into this one:

Master Reflecting and Weekly Reviews

In Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done,” he dedicates a chapter to “Reflecting”. In this chapter, he stresses that you must review your system on a regular basis to ensure it is current and functional. He describes what to look at and when, and he communicates the power of the “Weekly Review.” The video below explains, in detail, how you would use LifeTopix to perform the actions he describes in this chapter of “Getting Things Done.”

Watch the Video

More to Come

In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting more videos and tips to assist you with utilizing LifeTopix for GTD. Please subscribe to the Life Blog to stay up-to-date.

GTD® and Getting Things Done® are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company. LightArrow Apps are not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company.

LifeTopix is an all-in-one productivity app for iPad and iPhone. We have many customers who follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method and use LifeTopix to stay organized and productive. Many of these customers ask about the most efficient ways to use LifeTopix for GTD® and our best practices.

GTD, LifeTopix and the Organizing Phase

David Allen rewrote the “Getting Things Done” book for 2015 and beyond, which was originally published in 2001. In addition, LifeTopix has evolved since we first published the popular post, “Best Practices for Getting Things Done – Master Organizing” in 2013. We strive to keep our customers up-to-date and hope you enjoy the new information we’re providing for you today.

We previously published two posts described below. We encourage you to read those posts before diving into this one:

Master Organizing

The video below discusses the “Organizing” phase. When you organize actions and reference material, think about how you would sort these items into various areas. In an earlier post, we discussed using LifeTopix to define each collected item as actionable or non-actionable. Once you’ve completed clarifying items, you can begin organizing them (or this may be done simultaneously in LifeTopix).

Watch the Video

More to Come

In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting more videos and tips to assist you with utilizing LifeTopix for GTD. Please subscribe to the Life Blog to stay up-to-date.

LifeTopix is an all-in-one productivity app for iPad and iPhone. We have many customers who follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method and use LifeTopix to stay organized and productive. Many of these customers ask about the most efficient ways to use LifeTopix for GTD® and our best practices.

GTD, LifeTopix and the Clarifying Phase

David Allen rewrote the “Getting Things Done” book for 2015 and beyond, which was originally published in 2001. In addition, LifeTopix has evolved since we first published the popular post, “Best Practices for Getting Things Done – Processing” in 2013. We strive to keep our customers up-to-date and hope you enjoy the new information we’re providing for you today.

We previously published a post about how to capture and collect all the things that are in your head and how to get them outside your head in LifeTopix. It is titled “GTD Basics – Methods for Capturing Items in LifeTopix.” We encourage you to take a look at the previous post before diving into this one.

Today, we’re covering what to do with actions, projects and to dos that you’ve collected after you decide what they are and what you want to do with them. In David Allen’s book, he refers to this phase as “Clarifying.”

Watch the Video

Important Information About LifeTopix Integrations

We understand that many of you want to use LifeTopix at the office and you want to ensure that it works with the applications that you commonly use. This is why LifeTopix is integrated with many of your favorite apps and applications. You can access docs, tasks and notes in LifeTopix from Dropbox™, Google Drive or Box™; Toodledo®, Asana™ or Google Drive; and Evernote® or Toodledo®, respectively. And LifeTopix works seamlessly with iOS calendars and reminders.

More to Come

In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting more videos and tips to assist you with utilizing LifeTopix for GTD. Please subscribe to the Life Blog to stay up-to-date.

Over the years, probably brought on by being a startup junkie and always having poured myself unreservedly into work my entire professional life, I’ve developed several bad habits or things that are harmful to health, and perhaps also to relationships.

On the one hand, there is this insatiable passion and seemingly endless energy to take on challenges, get stuff done, being an engine that is always on. Sadly, on the other hand, there is fatigue, irritability, loss of focus, and low quality sleep. Undeniably, according to both ancient wisdom and modern medical know-how, the latter set of things affect one’s health dangerously. And with equal importance, the closest relationships are exposed to occasional bouts of irritability and other forms of negative energy. Broadly speaking, there is a general feeling of stress and anxiety as a result.

Three things I have either changed or started recently are personally helping me a lot without taking away from my productivity, and seem to be helping cut out the bad set of things.

This was a surprisingly welcome change. Sounds simple, but do you really need to be suddenly interrupted from your flow or zone, with a ding and a lock screen message that “Your Facebook friend so-and-so just joined Pinterest.” – and other irrelevant, unnecessary crap? I started going into my iPhone’s Notifications setup each time anything came up (Mail app alerts, Google alerts, Facebook, Twitter, CNBC alerts, and perhaps 10 others), and turning them off. I left Calendar and text message alerts on as I control the reminders I put on my calendar items, and also I am not a defocussed incessant texter – especially when I work, so most texts I get are important. On the same note, during work hours, I only make myself visible to the group of people I am working with on messaging apps. I still check my email and look at my agenda frequently, but on my own schedule, when I am in-between focussed tasks – kind of like waking up in sync with natural sleep cycles. Which leads me to my second thing – sleep.

2. Sleep well. Instead of an alarm clock, use an app like Sleep Cycle.

I started using this about a couple of months ago instead of using a regular alarm. It is ingeniously simple. You turn it on, put it next to your pillow facing down. It tracks your sleep cycles, duration and quality by tracking motion (whatever it detects from your tossing and turning, etc.), and perhaps from movement noise since it asks for access to the microphone. You can configure a window of time to wake up in, and it detects a stage when you are either awake or your sleep is in the waking part of the cycle during that time window, and wakes you up. Also, it measures your sleep quality and gives you a score and a graph of sleep level over time – that way you can correlate various pre-sleep activities with quality of sleep – for example, does sipping some tart cherry juice an hour before going to bed actually help with sleep, does deep breathing right before sleep give you some golden deep sleep cycles, etc. As my friend Chip had said 20 years ago: you should measure things that you care about. Inducing positive energy and a calm disengagement via pre-sleep deep breathing, and cutting out sources of negative energy seem to help in my case – which takes me to the third point.

Points 1 and 2 take zero time investment and give heavy positive returns. So that’s golden for the ROI (return-on-investment) fanatics. Point three is also a net positive – consuming about 30-60 minutes of time every day for adding positive energy (meditation / deep-breathing / quiet-time / simple yoga / reading / praying / reflecting / being grateful – look up Positive Psychology when you have a minute), but freeing up much more than that by subtracting sources of negative energy that steal time both directly and indirectly, and negatively affect every aspect of life. I am talking primarily about TV “news” folk, political talking-heads and other assorted villains – kings and queens of ignorance on TV and the internet constantly furthering their narrow agendas by stepping on your gentle minds. They come from the right and the left – ignore them, and instead look straight at what you value – there’s much better stuff there. The negative energy sources are plentiful in our social circles, in person, and more so on social media since it’s a much larger set. Cut. Them. Out. Hide them from your feeds, unfollow them, walk-away, change the topic, do whatever it takes to cleanly disengage. There are always tons of important things that require immense energy, constructive debate, championing ideas, defending values, and much effort without all the shallow and shrill things stealing our precious time. Any issue that is important to you can be engaged with constructively without subscribing to a buffet-line of fast-food class negative sentiments. That frees up more time to embrace positive things. Things you admire. Things you learn from. Things that leave you positive. Spend time with people that enrich you, and take a vacation every now and then!

What are some of your favorite positive energy sources? What kinds of negative energy sources have you successfully cut out? Please share.

LifeTopix and My.Agenda are personal organization apps for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Both apps are especially useful for those who utilize David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method. The GTD method is an excellent method for organizing your schedule and getting things done for both life and business.

At LightArrow, we’re constantly incorporating features that are useful for GTD, and we enjoy sharing our best practices for using these features. In this post, I’ll show you how you can use LifeTopix for the Doing Phase of GTD. Keep in mind that our starter app, My.Agenda, can include many of the features discussed by purchasing the Get Things Done Pack as an in-app purchase.

What is GTD?

If you’re not familiar with GTD, it’s “the groundbreaking work-life management system by David Allen that provides concrete solutions for transforming overwhelm and uncertainty into an integrated system of stress-free productivity,” according to David Allen’s website. Allen lays out five key phases of the GTD process, which include 1) Capture/Collect, 2) Process, 3) Organize, 4) Review, and 5) Doing. This post focuses on the Doing Phase of this workflow. In earlier blog posts, I’ve described the first four phases.

Refer to the following links to better understand how to use LightArrow apps for GTD.

What is the Doing Phase of GTD?

No matter what system you’re using, it’s incredibly important to take action on your projects and units of work (tasks). In GTD, the Doing Phase is about making choices and taking action on items based on the context, time available, resources, and priorities. The types of items that you execute on are primarily tasks; however, in LifeTopix you might also be acting upon notes, appointments, trips, visits, events, gifts, and shopping lists. When using LifeTopix, we suggest that you review your action lists daily and choose the items for which you wish to act.

This post focuses primarily on tasks and appointments, but keep in mind the principles are similar for most actionable items. If you’ve properly executed the phases of Capturing, Processing, Organizing, and Reviewing, then you should be able to easily proceed with the Doing Phase. When using LifeTopix for the Doing Phase, focus on the items described in the following sections.

Choosing Items from My Contexts

LifeTopix provides context tags for adding metadata to any type of object, no matter what system you use. Fundamentally, tags are used to describe the data for organizing purposes. In GTD, contexts are assigned to help you determine if you’re at the correct location and have the proper resources to complete a job. You can use LifeTopix’s context tags for GTD contexts.

The following four criteria are outlined in Allen’s book for setting contexts:

Context (tools available, such as phone, internet, etc.)

Time (the time at hand)

Energy (your attention level)

Priority (importance)

Take note that you’re more productive if you perform tasks, such as making phone calls during chunks of time, rather than switching to a different task — such as going to the grocery store to pick up milk and then finishing phone calls at a later time. Examples of GTD contexts are @office, @home, @grocery store, etc.

In LifeTopix, you can set any context you wish and you can assign multiple contexts to items. You access the My Contexts view by tapping the “tag” icon, as shown in the following image. The My Contexts view assists you in making choices about the jobs you wish to complete daily. This view shows all the contexts that you’ve set up.

You can drill down into the contexts to see their tasks and other items by tapping the items in the list. In the My Contexts view, I’ve chosen the context of @home. The following image shows the tasks to which I’ve assigned to this context.

Choosing and Viewing Daily Tasks from Contexts

Once you’ve selected a task from the My Contexts view, you can view the task detail to further determine if you have the time to complete the job. You can also determine if the item is a priority. The following image shows the fields that help you to decide on an action. The image below also shows how you can assign the action to the current date. Assigning a date allows you to easily locate and view the task in the Agenda view.

When you assign a due date to the current day, the task appears in the Agenda view, which makes it easy for you to view and edit your upcoming tasks from one screen, as shown in the following image.

In the above image, notice that the “Write 10 pages” task appears in light green, indicating it’s the next action to complete.

Choosing Items from Task Lists

Another method for choosing your daily tasks is to review your Task Lists in LifeTopix. In the Tasks + Projects topic of LifeTopix, you can access all your tasks in one view, which is the Task List view. You can drill down into each task to determine if you have enough time to complete the task and whether or not the task is flagged with a higher priority. This view is shown below.

We realize that it’s crucial to choose daily tasks based on many factors, and that priority and context are of upmost importance. Therefore, in our upcoming release of LifeTopix, we’ve made it easier to choose daily tasks by adding more choices for filtering task views. You will be able to view tasks by All, Category, Context Tag, Due Date, Last Updated, Status, Associated Item, Priority, and Task Owner. This allows you to better choose items based on context, time, resources, and priorities. These new choices are shown in the following image.

(Pre-release image)

Utilizing Hot Lists

Hot Lists are exactly what the name implies — items that have a high degree of importance. Hence, we created the Hot List view for those “Hot” items. The Hot List gives you easy access to your favorite and most commonly used views and items by aggregating them into one place. This saves you time in navigating to frequently used views, items, and resources in LifeTopix.

At LightArrow, we realize that when following the GTD method, you might not want to set due dates for tasks that do not have hard deadlines. In LifeTopix, we recommend adding the due dates so you can easily view your items in one place (the Agenda view); however, if you prefer not to assign due dates to tasks, you can add these items to the Hot List.

To add tasks to your Hot List, in your Task List view, tap the “more info” icon to view the following options and then choose “Add to Hot List.”

Note: In many LifeTopix list views, you can tap and hold an item to add it to the Hot List.

Subsequently, you can view your chosen items directly from the Hot List, which you access from your Dashboard, as shown below.

Using Your Calendar Views

Actions that must be completed at a certain date and time (with hard deadlines), such as classes, meetings, doctor’s appointments, kids’ activities, etc. are handled easily by LifeTopix. Specifically, LifeTopix allows you to define these items by Appointments, Bill Payments, Events, Dated Notes, Occasions, Medications, Activity/Wellness, and more. LifeTopix has a variety of choices for viewing the calendar. LifeTopix includes a main calendar that allows you to pick and choose the types of items that display on it. The app also includes specific calendars for tasks, events, and trips. You can view the calendar by Day, Week, Month, and Year. If you want to see these calendar views in detail, refer to Not Crazy About the iOS 7 Calendar App – Here’s the Answer.

In the Month and Day views, you can easily review the items that you scheduled for the day, which helps you to decide on the other tasks that you’ll work on daily. The following image shows an example of the Month view.

In this view, you can see all the dated items that you’ve assigned for the day — all in one place. Keep in mind that your dated items also appear in your Agenda view, which provides a good list of your jobs, events, and appointments for the current day and the upcoming week.

Completing Tasks

Of course, completing your important tasks is the ultimate goal when your intention is productivity and getting things done. Doing the work is up to you, but LifeTopix makes it easy to mark your tasks as complete. You simply set the Status to Completed and enter a Finished On date. This way, you have a record of when you complete the task and you feel a sense of accomplishment when you see your important items crossed off. The following screenshot shows the fields where you indicate status for a task.

Once you’ve completed your tasks, you can view the completed task list by filtering by all tasks, as shown in the following image.

Take note, in our upcoming release, you’ll have the ability to view your tasks by status, as shown earlier in this post.

More Information

GTD is a great system for managing your busy home and work life. If you’d like to know more about best practices using LifeTopix for GTD, refer to the following posts:

Your Turn

As I mentioned, if you’ve properly focused on the first four phases of GTD, then the Doing Phase should be a breeze. Please comment and let us know how you implement the Doing Phase and let us know if you have suggestions or questions.

GTD® and Getting Things Done® are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company. LightArrow Apps are not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company.

LifeTopix and My.Agenda are personal organization apps for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Both apps are especially useful for those who utilize David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method. The GTD method is an excellent method for organizing your life and getting things done for both life and business.

We’re constantly incorporating features that are useful for GTD, and we enjoy sharing our best practices for using these features. In this post, I’ll show you how you can use LifeTopix’s features for the Weekly Review phase of GTD. Keep in mind that our starter App, My.Agenda, can include many of the features discussed by purchasing the Get Things Done Pack as an in-app purchase.

What is GTD?

If you’re not familiar with GTD, it’s “the groundbreaking work-life management system by David Allen that provides concrete solutions for transforming overwhelm and uncertainty into an integrated system of stress-free productivity,” according to David Allen’s website. Allen lays out five key phases of the GTD process, which include 1) Capture/Collect, 2) Process, 3) Organize, 4) Review, and 5) Do. This post focuses on the Review phase of this workflow. In earlier blog posts, I’ve described the first four phases. At the end of this post, you’ll find links to those earlier posts.

What is the Review Phase in GTD?

In many productivity systems including GTD, experts recommend that you set aside time every week for approximately an hour to reflect on the items that you’ve completed, determine what needs to be completed the following week, and to contact people who you need to connect with. Allen recommends that you select a consistent place and time so you develop a habit for your Weekly Review. Schedule your Weekly Reviews on your LifeTopix calendar to ensure your process remains consistent.

The following table provides an overview of the items that you should include in your Weekly Review and how LifeTopix provides a feature or view to make the Weekly Review painless.

Weekly Review Checklist

LifeTopix Feature or View

Calendar (Time Sensitive Items) ->

Calendar / Agenda View

Email and Someday/Maybe Items ->

Quick Inbox

Projects ->

Tasks + Projects Topic

Contacts ->

People + Services Topic (or) Context Tags

Checklists and To-do Lists ->

Notes + Files Topic or Agenda view

“Waiting for” and Catch All ->

Context Tags and Recently Updated

Loose Papers ->

Box, Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive Integration

How Do You Review These Items in LifeTopix?

LifeTopix and My.Agenda are both very flexible apps so there are several ways that you can approach your Weekly Review. The following sections describe different approaches for viewing the items you wish to review.

Calendar / Agenda (Time Sensitive Items)

Items you’ve placed on your calendar are important for your Weekly Review because they’re time sensitive. You’ve given them a date for a reason, whether it’s a hard deadline, meeting, or other event.

When performing your Weekly Review, review the items that you’ve scheduled and create any new items that might be a result of your scheduled items. For example, you might have a meeting with a client coming up, but you haven’t reviewed your client’s requirements. Put this prep time on your calendar or use your LifeTopix Quick Inbox to collect this information.

LifeTopix Calendar

The LifeTopix Calendar is an essential tool for your Weekly Review. Looking ahead 30 days will give you a good “big picture” view of your scheduled items. Make sure that your daily tasks are aligned to your strategic initiatives.

LifeTopix’s Month view is very handy for reviewing time-sensitive items. Review the next two to three weeks to get a sense of what is immediately ahead of you. The image below shows an example of the calendar with the Month view selected. The calendar shows a clear marker on each day that you’ve scheduled an item. You can filter the calendar to view the types of items that are important to you. For example, if you want to view tasks, but not media items — this is certainly possible.

LifeTopix Agenda View

You’ll find your Agenda view to be priceless during your Weekly Review. The Agenda view provides you with an easy-to-read, high-level view of the items that you’ve scheduled for the current day and the next seven days. It also includes your to-do lists, checklists, overdue items, and undated items. Just like the calendar, it includes filters so you can decide which types of items you wish to view on your agenda. The image below shows an example of the Agenda view.

Review your to-dos, overdue items, and upcoming items on your calendar. The Undated items section is especially useful because they may not be on your radar yet. This is a good time to decide the fate of your upcoming undated items, tasks, projects, events, and other items.

Email and Someday/Maybe Items (Quick Inbox)

Utilize the LifeTopix Quick Inbox for items without a clear due date, with a due date in the future (ticklers), that you’ve collected from your email messages, or that you wish to do someday (such as learn to speak another language). These items should be reviewed during your Weekly Review. Quickly review items in your someday/maybe lists to determine if you want to convert them to projects or other items. Remove any items that are no longer of interest to you.

The image below shows an example of items waiting to enter the Processing Phase in the LifeTopix Quick Inbox.

In LifeTopix, it’s easy to convert these items to actionable items such as projects, tasks or events, as shown in the following image.

Projects (Tasks + Projects Topic)

In GTD or other productivity systems, a project is an objective that requires one or more actions. The Weekly Review is a good time to determine what you need to accomplish to move your projects forward and the due dates for the tasks or other items associated with the project.

In LifeTopix, you can create tasks (as task lists) or as a part of a project in the LifeTopix Tasks + Projects topic. These tasks can remain undated if you wish, and you should review them regularly. In LifeTopix, you can create general projects, education projects, health and activity projects, and other types of projects. You can review them all in one place — the Tasks + Projects topic, which is shown below.

Once you tap on any project, you can view and associate additional items, such as a task list, to-do lists, checklists, appointments, files, notes, expenses, services, shopping items, etc. The project gives you a complete picture of each project and organizes all associated items.

Contacts (People + Services Topic)

During your Weekly Review, you should decide if you need to contact friends, family, or colleagues regarding projects, tasks or other items. Your Weekly Review is a good time to manage your follow-ups. In LifeTopix, when you create tasks or other items, you can assign a contact as an “owner” as shown in the image below:

During your Weekly Review, in the LifeTopix People + Services topic, you can view all your recent activity in the “Recent Items” section and easily identify any owners that you’ve assigned to items, as shown in the image below:

Tapping View/Edit in the screen above enables you to easily view the assignments for this person, as shown in the image below:

You can also easily contact your selected person via phone, SMS, Twitter, and Facebook through the Person view, which makes follow-ups a breeze.

Checklists and To-do Lists (Notes + Files Topic or Agenda View)

During your Weekly Review, it’s a good idea to review your to-do lists and checklists. I usually reserve to-do lists for lists of items that can be completed fairly quickly and checklists for things such as packing lists. You can view checklists and to-do lists directly from the Agenda view, shown earlier in this post, or you can manage these lists directly from the Notes + Files topic, as shown in the following image.

Tapping on the tile that shows your to-do list or checklist allows you to view it and check off completed items.

Context Tags

One of the most powerful features of LifeTopix is the implementation of tags. In LifeTopix, Context tags are multi-purpose tags used for the purpose of identification of items. With tags, you can label items for identification or to give GTD Context. When items are tagged with matching Contexts, you can define your own views with your defined groupings.

In the GTD method, Contexts are typically based on a physical location, resource, or the equipment that’s necessary to complete a task. Examples of Contexts are @office, @home, @grocery store, @computer, @train, @vacation, or @phone. Also, in GTD, items are allowed more than one Context. For example, you could assign a Context of @office and @phone for phone calls that are completed at the office.

One way that you can identify items that you wish to include in your weekly review is to tag items with a tag defined as @Review. In LifeTopix, you can use multiple tags on items; therefore, you can implement GTD Contexts, and you can use tags to flag items for review. The image below shows an example of how this appears in LifeTopix:

Tagging Items

One strategy you can utilize is to be cognizant of projects, tasks, and other items you want to include in your Weekly Review and tag them when appropriate. For example, if there’s a document that you plan to review by the end of the week, tag it with @Review.

In GTD, Waiting For is the list of items that you cannot complete because you’re blocked in some way. For example, your TPS report may be due; however, you’re waiting for the new cover sheet. Consequently, you would tag it with @Waiting For. This way, you will make sure to follow up on these items before they become overdue. You can tag items with context tags, such as @Assistant, @Boss, or @Spouse for items that you’ve delegated or are waiting for an answer before you can proceed.

In LifeTopix, you can apply your tags to any of the items listed above by simply tapping Edit in the appropriate screen for the item, such as a task. The image below shows one method for tagging an item. In this example, the item is a task.

When you perform your Weekly Review, you’ll save time because you can view all your items that you’ve tagged with @Review or other tags in one place, as shown below.

This view gives you full access to your items with editing capabilities and allows you to view the items by Type, Updated, or Name. You can modify due dates, priority, effort; remove items that are no longer required; and mark items complete — there are several options based on the type of item that you’re modifying.

Keep mind, if you don’t believe you have the discipline to tag your items with @Review throughout the week, LifeTopix includes many other options for organizing your Weekly Review — don’t fret!

Loose Papers – Online File Integration

The Weekly Review is a good time to pull out any of your loose papers that you’ve gathered during the week. LifeTopix supports access to files and notes in Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Evernote, and Toodledo and also supports media files such as photos and video. We recommend that you digitize your files, store the files in the Cloud, and access those files via your LifeTopix items.

More Information

GTD is a great system for managing your busy home and work life. If you’d like to know more about best practices using LifeTopix for GTD, refer to the following posts:

You might have noticed lately that some of your favorite productivity apps are being acquired and shut down or just simply discontinued. Astrid, Catch Notes, and now Bento are just a few examples. Luckily, we’ve made it easy to import and export data from .csv files. This post includes the information you need to know if you plan to import data from Bento or other apps.

Will LifeTopix Meet My Needs?

We encourage you to research LifeTopix to evaluate if it meets your needs. The Bento App Store Description includes the top 10 uses of Bento. Below, I’ll describe many of these uses and mention the equivalent in LifeTopix:

Organize contacts / clients -> LifeTopix People + Services topic

Track projects / deadlines -> LifeTopix Tasks + Projects topic

Special events / parties -> LifeTopix Events topic

To-do items -> LifeTopix checklists and tasks

Lists of things / collections -> LifeTopix Home + Assets topic

Products / inventory -> LifeTopix Home + Assets topic

Expenses -> Finances (payments included) topic

Organize music / movies / photos -> LifeTopic media topic

Passwords and logins -> LifeTopix bookmarks

Sync – > LifeTopix device-to-device sync and AirAccess

Migration Details

You can’t migrate all of your data, but you can import several types. We recommend that you store your media files, such as photos and videos in Dropbox, and then associate these items with LifeTopix projects and other objects.

The objects and fields that you can import into LifeTopix from a different application are described below, and all required fields are indicated.

Note: Using the formats and spreadsheets described here, you can also import large amounts of data into LifeTopix. And keep in mind that you can import shopping items that belong to multiple shopping lists from just one .csv file — this also applies to log items and checklists.

The spreadsheet names must match the names indicated below.

Log Items

Spreadsheet Name: LogItems.csv

Log items are primarily used for fitness and health metrics.

Spreadsheet Example

Fields

Field

Details

Required?

Log Item Name

Any name.

Yes

Log Topic Name

Must be a valid name already in LifeTopix such as “Activity Log.”

Yes

Log Entry

Will match values in activity log.

Yes

Log Comment

Any comment.

No

Log Time

custom cell format: yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss

Yes

Tasks for Trips, Visitors, Events, Service Providers, and Projects

Spreadsheet Names: ProjectTasks.csv, EventTasks.csv, TripTasks.csv, VisitorTasks.csv (The name indicates which type of object they will be imported into – Projects, Events, Trips, or Visitors.)

Tasks are primarily used for things to do for projects, trips, visitors, and service providers.

Spreadsheet Example

Fields

Field

Details

Required?

Name

Any name

Yes

Description

Any description

No

Status

Not Started, In Progress, On Hold, Completed, Canceled

Yes

Priority

Low, Medium, High

No

Due Date

yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss

No

Start Date

yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss

No

End Date

yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss

No

Effort (in hours)

Hours

No

Categories

Will attempt to match values. If not already created, will create them.

No

Checklists

Spreadsheet name: ChecklistItems.csv

Checklists are primarily used for things to do or items you need to check off such as packing lists.

Spreadsheet Example

Fields

Field

Details

Required?

Checklist Name

Any name

Yes

Item Name

Any item

Yes

Checked

Yes or No

No

Shopping List Items

Spreadsheet name: ShoppinglistItems.csv

Shopping list items are primarily used for grocery shopping or other shopping lists, such as business or personal items.

Spreadsheet Example

Fields

Field

Details

Required?

Shopping List Name

Will attempt to match values. If not already created, will create one.

Yes

Product Name

Will attempt to match values. If not already created, will create one.

Yes

Seller Name

Will attempt to match values. If not already created, will create one

Yes

Unit Price

Will import as number, but display as dollars and all other currency symbols are removed.

No

Unit

Will attempt to match values. If not already created, will create one.

No

Quantity

All reasonable numeric quantities accepted.

No

Total Cost

Will import as number, but display as dollars and all other currency symbols are removed.

No

Important Note about Date Cells

It is very important to format the date cells with this format: yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss as a custom format or your date values will not migrate, as shown below.

How do you import?

Save the spreadsheets as insertcorrectname.csv and the email them to yourself. In the email message, tap and hold the name of the .csv file and then open it in LifeTopix. LifeTopix will display messages similar to the following. Accept them and continue.

Next, verify that your items migrated correctly.

Questions?

If you have any questions about importing your data, please ask in the comments or contact support. We’re here to help. Good luck!

Bento is a registered trademark of FileMaker, Inc. Catch Notes is a registered trademark of Catch.com, Inc. Astrid is a registered trademark of Yahoo.

Now that Yahoo is shutting down the popular Astrid to-do list and shopping list app, you’re probably wanting to know what to do about your tasks and shopping lists. We have a solution. You can easily migrate your Astrid tasks and Shopping lists from Astrid to LifeTopix (or the starter app, My.Agenda, with in-app purchases).

Migrating Astrid Tasks to LifeTopix Tasks

Astrid logo is the property of Yahoo.

If you have basic knowledge of Excel, then you will find this painless and simple. You’ll need access to Excel or a different application that supports .csv files, your Astrid username and password, and access to your email.

The steps below explain how it’s done:

Next, on your web browser, go to http://www.astrid.com/home/export (link no longer available) as shown in the following screenshot:

Click Backup my data and your data will be emailed to you in a zip file. When you receive the email, download it. It’s important to change the extension of the to .zip or the file will not open correctly. After you change the name of the file, double click it to extract it.

You will notice that separate files are extracted. You will be interested in the file named tasks.csv. It contains all of your tasks and shopping items. Open this file with Excel or a different program for spreadsheets. This file contains all of your tasks and shopping items in the following format:

The format that LifeTopix accepts is shown in the following image. Create a separate spreadsheet called ProjectTasks.csv with the following columns. It must be named ProjectsTasks.csv.

This spreadsheet can include your tasks and shopping lists (or) you can choose to convert your Astrid shopping items to LifeTopix shopping lists, and I will discuss this further in this post.

Astrid

LifeTopix

Title

Name

Created By

No Conversion

Assigned To

No Conversion

Created On

Start Date (custom cell format is yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss)

Due Date

Due Date (custom cell format is yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss)

Importance (3, 2, 1)

Priority (low, medium, high)

Repeat

No Conversion

Lists

No Conversion

Description

Description

Completed On

End Date (custom cell format is yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss)

Now place all your tasks into this spreadsheet with the fields mapped as directed above. You can add information to the blank columns if you prefer. You will notice that shopping items are indicated by the “Lists” column. I’ll discuss a separate spreadsheet for these items.

Note: it is very important to format the date cells with this format: yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss as a custom format or your date values will not migrate. An example is shown below:

Save the spreadsheet as .csv and email it to yourself. In the email message tap and hold the name of the .csv file and then open it in LifeTopix. LifeTopix will display the following messages. Accept them and continue.

Now confirm that your tasks are migrated as shown below:

Now that you’ve successfully migrated your tasks, I will show you how to migrate your shopping items.

Migrating Astrid Shopping Items to LifeTopix Shopping Lists

This spreadsheet will include your shopping items only and we suggest you map the data as follows:

Astrid

LifeTopix

Title

Product Name

Created By

No Conversion

Assigned To

No Conversion

Created On

No Conversion

Due Date

No Conversion

Importance (3, 2, 1)

No Conversion

Repeat

No Conversion

Lists

Shopping List Name (e.g. Astrid Shopping List)

Description

No Conversion

Completed On

No Conversion

Your spreadsheet must be named ShoppingListItems.csv and it should be created as follows. You must enter a shopping list name into the first column and a product name; however, the other fields may stay empty if you choose. I chose to change the name to “Astrid Shopping List” so I could identify the items easily.

Save the spreadsheet as ShoppingListItems.csv and email it to yourself. In the email message tap and hold the name of the .csv file and then open it in LifeTopix. LifeTopix will ask you to confirm the import and continue.

Your resulting list will appear as follows:

Questions?

If you have any questions about importing your tasks, please ask in the comments or contact support. We’re here to help. Good luck!

LifeTopix and My.Agenda are personal organization apps for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Both apps are especially useful for those who utilize David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method. The GTD method is an excellent method for organizing your life and getting things done. And it’s not just for your work life. I recently stumbled upon this post from April Perry that mentions how GTD enabled this mom to really enjoy her family.

We’re constantly incorporating features that are useful for GTD, and we enjoy sharing our best practices for using these features. In this post, I’ll show you how you can use LifeTopix’s features for the Organizing phase of GTD. Keep in mind that our starter App, My.Agenda, can include many of these features discussed by purchasing the Get Things Done Pack as an in-app purchase.

Note: The screenshots in this post were created using an unreleased version of LifeTopix, which will be coming soon to the App Store.

What is GTD?

If you’re not familiar with GTD, it’s “the groundbreaking work-life management system by David Allen that provides concrete solutions for transforming overwhelm and uncertainty into an integrated system of stress-free productivity,” according to David Allen’s website. Allen lays out five key phases of the GTD process, which include 1) Capture/Collect, 2) Process, 3) Organize, 4) Review, and 5) Do. This post focuses on the Organize phase of this workflow.

What is the Organize Phase of GTD?

When you consider organizing, think about how you would divide your home life and work into various areas. Consider how you would sort your life before you get started. In an earlier post, we discussed using LifeTopix to define each collected item as actionable or non-actionable. Once you’ve completed processing items, you can begin organizing them (or this may be done simultaneously for some items). During the Organize phase, you divide your items into various areas.

Major sections include the following areas:

Projects – Actions that require more than one step to complete.

Calendar Items – Actions that must be completed at a designated day and/or time.

Next Actions – Items that only require one step, such as “call mom.”

Waiting For – Items that others need to complete that affect you or your work.

Allen suggests that you also organize your reference material, which are items that do not have any actions associated with them.

Reference material might include:

Checklists

Items without actions, but need to be retrieved at some time

Notes from meetings, classes, etc.

Projects in LifeTopix

During the Capture and Collect phase, you collect items that are subsequently processed during the Processing phase. You might have placed them in a holding area via the LifeTopix Quick Inbox and then converted the items to the proper type of object — such as a Project.

Allen suggests that you create projects for actions that require more than one step. For example, if you’re starting a landscaping project, you will have several tasks such as 1) choose three landscape design firms to obtain bids, 2) set up appointments with landscape design firms, 3) choose designs, and so on.

When using LifeTopix, your first step for organizing your projects is to define project categories (under Manage Categories in Settings) that are relevant for your life. Built-in categories include Education, Health + Activity, Indoor, Media, and Outdoor, as shown in the screenshot below.

You can add more categories or delete the default categories — LifeTopix is very flexible allowing you to define what works for you. You can further organize by creating subcategories under your categories. Once you’ve created your categories, you can create a project and break it down into tasks, as shown in the following screenshot.

As a side note, you can view your tasks by Open, Undated, and Overdue. And you can assign a status such as In Progress, On Hold, Completed, Canceled, or on Hold, if desired.

Calendar Items and Next Actions

Actions that must be completed at a certain date and time, such as classes, meetings, doctor’s appointments, kids’ activities, etc. are handled easily by LifeTopix. Specifically, LifeTopix allows you to define these items by Appointments, Bill Payments, Events, Dated Notes, Occasions, Medications, and Activity/Wellness. By simply accessing LifeTopix’s Calendar View, tapping the plus sign, choosing Quick Add, and selecting one of the options, you can choose to create dated items such as Trips, Visits, Attending Events, Hosting Events, and Occasions.

LifeTopix gives you a variety of options for Next Actions. You can choose to use reminders, tasks not associated with projects, or to-do lists to organize items that only require one step.

Waiting for Items

At times, completion of your tasks might depend upon the completion of a different task by a family member, friend, or colleague. Or, perhaps, you’ve delegated your tasks to someone else. This is when Waiting For items come into play. LifeTopix handles these items by allowing you to add owner(s) to a task as shown in the following screenshot.

You can view all tasks for each person through the People + Services topic. It’s a good idea to create a LifeTopix Group for contacts to which you frequently assign tasks for easy access.

Context Tags

When using the GTD method, it’s necessary to consider the context of your captured items. The context defines how and where the item will be completed. How defines the tools, such as @laptop and where defines the location, such as @home.

In LifeTopix, contexts are completely configurable to meet your needs and items can include zero or more contexts. You can configure tags in the My Contexts view, which is shown in the screenshot below. You can also access all the items defined with these contexts directly from this view.

Reference Materials

Reference materials are items that aren’t actionable that include data and files, which may or may not support your projects. LifeTopix allows you to associate several types of objects with projects — allowing quick and easy retrieval.

With LifeTopix, you can associate Checklists, Bookmarks, Local and Online Documents, Audio, Photos, Video, Notes, Expenses, Services, and Shopping items with Projects, as shown in the following screenshot. This eliminates the need to file these items into physical paper folders and files using large filing cabinets.

And with LifeTopix, you can back up your data to Dropbox™ or other services, allowing you to feel secure about your data. In addition, LifeTopix supports Google Drive, Dropbox™, SkyDrive™, and Evernote™ — allowing you to access files or notes from these services in context with your projects.

Review and Do Phases

A future post will discuss the Review and Do Phases in depth, but keep in mind that when you choose actionable items to complete when you review your action lists daily, you can simply set the Due Date to the current day — with or without a specific time. If you choose not to include a time, keep in mind that your calendar will consider a task without a date as an all-day event, which results in a blocked out day to others viewing your shared calendar.

When you’ve added a due date, the Agenda view will show all the tasks in a list view that are due on the current day. The following screenshot shows the resulting Agenda view after tasks have been given due dates.

LifeTopix and My.Agenda are personal organization apps for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Both apps are especially useful for those who utilize David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method. We’re constantly incorporating features that are useful for GTD, and we enjoy sharing our best practices for using these features. In this post, I’ll show you how you can use LifeTopix’s features to help you capture and collect things that you’re carrying in your head and that are competing for your attention.

What is GTD?

If you’re not familiar with GTD, it’s “the groundbreaking work-life management system by David Allen that provides concrete solutions for transforming overwhelm and uncertainty into an integrated system of stress-free productivity,” according to David Allen’s website.

Allen lays out five key phases of the GTD process, which include 1) Capture/Collect, 2) Process, 3) Organize, 4) Review, and 5) Do. This post focuses on the Capture/Collect Phase of this workflow and describes the many ways that you can capture and collect items that are on your mind.

Why Capture Everything?

Allen’s thoughts around capturing everything that’s floating around in your head is of greatest importance because once these items are off your mind, you’re no longer burdened by them. Just like removing clutter from your home to create a relaxed environment, removing clutter from your mind into a trusted system gives you a sense of relief and order.

Capturing these ideas, plans, etc. allow you to carry through on them and move them through the workflow. LifeTopix and the starter app, My.Agenda, are ideal tools for capturing things and helping you to follow through on items that you must do and goals that you want to achieve.

The Capture Process

Our apps include many features that allow you to capture everything that’s in your head. I’ll touch on the following features in this post:

The Quick Inbox

The Quick Menu

The Agenda View

The LifeTopix Calendar

The 12 Life Topics

The Notes + Files Topic

Your Reminders / Siri

The Quick Inbox

The Quick Inbox was designed with GTD in mind. Its purpose is for quickly capturing everything that’s in your head for processing later. It’s perfect when you’re short on time, or for items that are not on your immediate agenda, or for “ticklers,” which are items that have a definite date in the future such as a wedding you’re attending. Most of us keep our smartphones handy at most times so a personal organization app such as LifeTopix or My.Agenda are the natural choices for recording these items that pop into your head or are demanded of you.

You can easily access the Quick Inbox by tapping the Inbox icon in the left pane then tapping the plus sign in the upper right corner. The Quick Inbox displays as shown below.

You simply type a description of the item, optionally add an Act by date or you can tap Soon or Someday for items without a clear due date. These items are added to the Soon or Someday buckets — depending on how you’ve defined them, and all dated items are added to the Soon bucket.

When you’re ready to process these items, you can easily convert them by tapping on the green arrow and then tapping Convert as shown below.

When using the Quick Inbox, you can convert the items to tasks, notes, appointments, reminders, projects, trips, visits, attending events, hosting events, shopping lists, or gifts as shown below.

Once these items have been converted, you can add details that support the next stages of the workflow — (Organize, Review, and Do). Keep in mind, you should set a time each day to review and process these items that are waiting in your Quick Inbox so they don’t fall through the cracks.

The Quick Menu

The Quick Menu gives you access to many important features for capturing information, such as the Quick Inbox discussed above, Quick Add, and the Quick Log. You’ll find the Quick Menu as indicated in the image below.

When using Quick Add, you can move directly to the Processing step and add all the details of the entry immediately, if you wish.

The Agenda View

You can also capture items directly in the Agenda view, which is the view that shows your to-do lists/checklists, and what’s important today, tomorrow, and the next seven days. The Agenda view is a perfect place to add several types of items to the Quick Inbox described earlier, or through Quick Add.

Through the Agenda view, Quick Add allows you to add tasks, shopping lists, notes, appointments, reminders, expenses, projects, events you’re hosting or attending, trips and visits, occasions, bills, device reminders, and device events. When using Quick Add, you can move directly to the Processing step and add all the details of the entry immediately, if you wish.

The LifeTopix Calendar

For items that need to be scheduled at a fixed time such as meetings, doctor’s appointments, or social events, the LifeTopix calendar is the logical place to capture them. Much like the Agenda view, simply tapping the plus sign allows you to add events you’re attending, events you’re hosting, appointments, reminders, occasions, device events, and device reminders as shown below.

The 12 Life Topics

You can capture any type of item through the My Topics view by tapping one of the cards, and you’re given full access to all the details of the entry. You can see an example of the My Topics view below. The 12 life topics include Tasks + Projects, Shopping, Events, Travel + Places, People + Services, Health + Activity, Finances, Home + Assets, Education, Notes + Files, Media, and Bookmarks. To learn more about the 12 life topics, refer to the 12 Life Topics.

The Notes + Files Topic

For those who prefer list-based notes for ubiquitous capture, LifeTopix or My.Agenda provides the flexibility to capture these notes directly from the Notes + Files Topic. And they allow you to capture these notes via voice/audio, text, and through free-hand writing. You can also add checklists/to-do lists from the Notes + Files topic. You can share these notes via social media, email, or text messages.

The Notes + Files topic is also the perfect place to capture reference materials such as class notes, meeting notes, coupons, health docs, manuals, financial items, legal docs, etc. You can attach a file to these notes, take a photo, or use online notes (such as Google Docs or Evernote).

As a side note, if you want to access the Notes + Files Topic quickly, you can add All Notes to the Hot List view for one-tap access.

Using Siri to Add Reminders

If you like to use Siri to capture items you wish to be reminded of, you can simply tell Siri what you want to be reminded of and where. For example, you can say, “Remind me to pick up Timmy from Soccer practice at 7:00 p.m. today.” Siri launches the Reminder app and requests confirmation. With the LifeTopix integration, you can automatically view these reminders in your Agenda view, My Calendar view, and your Events Calendar. You can open the reminder directly from LifeTopix to edit it or mark it as complete. You can also create new entries in the Reminders app from LifeTopix topic

More Information

GTD is a great system for managing your busy home and work life. If you’d like to know more about best practices using LifeTopix for GTD, refer to the following posts:

Your Turn

You’ll find in LifeTopix or My.Agenda that there’s several ways to capture everything that’s in your head. Hopefully the items that I touched on will get you started to living a more productive, stress-free life. Please comment!

GTD® and Getting Things Done® are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company. LightArrow Apps are not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company.